Take a crime, horror or literary bus tour

November 10: Hotel Horrors and Main Street Vice historic downtown LA bus tours
WHAT: Esotouric presents Hotel Horrors and Main Street Vice
WHEN: Saturday November 10, 1-2:30 pm (Hotel), 3:30pm-5pm (Main)
COST: $25 for one tour, or ride both for $45
WHERE: Both depart from Cafe Metropol, tours cover downtown LA's historic core

From the founding of the city through the 1940s, downtown was the true center of Los Angeles, a lively, densely populated, exciting and sometimes dangerous place. After many quiet decades, downtown is making an incredible return. But while many of the historic buildings remain, their human context has been lost. That's why Esotouric, the eclectic bus adventure company whose tours reveal the secret history of L.A. through crime, culture, literature and architecture, is offering two new downtown tours meant to bring alive the old ghosts and memories that cling to the streets and structures of the historic core.
These tours were launched in September to thank the downtown community and Downtown News for voting Esotouric Best Downtown Tour earlier this summer. This is the second time they have been offered, after a sold out debut.
Hotel Horrors and Main Street Vice are both are hosted by Esotouric founders Kim Cooper and Richard Schave. The 90-minute tours begin at Cafe Metropol (near the old Santa Fe train terminal at Third and Santa Fe, better known today as SCI-Arc) and meander through downtown, with a one-hour snack and conversation break between them. On each tour we'll visit the scenes of crimes and interesting happenings, and share vintage photographs of the scenes as they appeared up to 100 years ago.
Tour #1 is Hotel Horrors, a true crime and oddities tour featuring some of the wildest, weirdest, goriest and most memorable happenings in historic hotels like the Alexandria, Rosslyn, Barclay and Cecil. Get on the bus to find out where Night Stalker Richard Ramirez liked to stay and the hotel that saw a visit from the Skid Row Slasher, plus which hotel was the choice of Columbian drug mules with cocaine in their platform shoes, what lobby hosted a small scale anarchist riot, where two traveling chocolate salesmen laughed so hard they fell backwards out a window to their deaths and the truth about the myth that Beth "The Black Dahlia" Short was last seen alive at the Biltmore.
We'll explore the fiery curse that repeatedly leveled the St. George Hotel and thrill to the litany of stars who stayed at the long-lost and truly grand Hotel Nadeau (now site of the L.A. Times building) including actresses Sarah Bernhardt and Lily Langtree, Henry M. Stanley of "Dr. Livingston, I presume" fame, singer Nellie Melba, Mark Twain and Hawaiian King Kalakua and Queen Liliuokalani. Also included are some lighthearted stories to help the blood and gore go down.
Tour #2 is Main Street Vice, a celebration of the ribald, racy, raunchy old promenade where the better people simply did not travel, but kicks were had by all who did. Burlesque babes and dirty picture parlors, mummified old west outlaws and old time tattoo parlors, wax museums and pawn brokers, "professors" offering sex lectures and magazine peddlers with nudie Marilyn Monroe calendars under the counter, sophisticated steak houses and nickel donut dives -- these were the pleasures and the people to be found along Main during the first half of the 20th century, a street that every Angeleno knew offered more (yet less) of what could be seen anywhere else. On this tour, we'll visit the scenes of some more unforgettable debaucheries and share stories of crime, smut, passion and commerce. The tour runs primarily along Main Street, with a few detours to explore similar entertainments offered in the vicinity of Main.
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Esotouric's Pasadena Confidential Crime Bus Tour Explores the Crown City's Dark Side
WHAT: Esotouric Bus Adventures presents the Pasadena Confidential Crime Bus Tour
WHEN: Saturday November 17, 1-5 pm
COST: $55, which includes snacks and beverages (or get a four-tour season pass for $190)
WHERE: Departs from Fair Oaks and Arlington Street, South Pasadena.

On November 17, Esotouric, the eclectic bus adventure company whose offbeat tours expose L.A.'s secret history, offers its infreqent and popular Pasadena Confidential tour, a true crime bus adventure delving deep into the weird and horrible past of one of L.A.'s most exclusive suburbs. Making a special appearance on this tour: Crimebo the Crime Clown!
Crime fiends will enjoy a four-hour guided luxury coach tour to the darkest recesses of Pasadena history. From celebrated cases like the RFK assassination, "Eraserhead" star Jack Nance's strange end, black magician/rocket scientist Jack Parsons' death-by-misadventure and the 1926 Rose Parade grand stand collapse, to fascinating obscurities, the tour's multitude of murders, arsons, kidnappings, robberies, suicides, auto wrecks and oddball happening sites provide a alternate history of Pasadena that's as fascinating as it is creepy.
Crime Bus passengers will tour the old Millionaire's Row on Orange Grove, thrill to the shocking Sphinx Murder on the steps of the downtown Masonic Hall, wonder about the unknown fiend who sneaked past a little girl to poison her father's beer, thrill to the misadventures of one very poorly-behaved (but beautifully dressed!) chimpanzee and discover why people named Judd should think twice before moving to Pasadena.
Riders on this eye-opening, funny and informative tour will forever see Pasadena in a new light. It is highly recommended for natives and newcomers alike, crime and history buffs and anyone who likes to seek out the unexpected.

Upcoming Esotouric bus tour schedule:
Sat Oct 20­ The Real Black Dahlia tour
Sun Oct 21 ­ Where the Action Was (rock history tour)
Sat Oct 27 ­ Haunts of a Dirty Old Man: Charles Bukowski's LA
Sun Oct 28 ­ Hallowe'en Horrors featuring Crimebo the Clown
Sat Nov 10 ­ Hotel Horrors and Main Street Vice tours
Sat Nov 17 ­ Pasadena Confidential tour

For more info on Esotouric, please visit http://www.esotouric.com
For more on the 1947project crime a day blog (current year 1927), see http://www.1947project.com